How Mexico’s drug policies are (or are not) changing

In a recent Small Wars Journal op-ed, Nathan Jones, the Baker Institute’s Alfred C. Glassell III Postdoctoral Fellow in Drug Policy, presents an overview of Mexico’s drug policies as the country transitions to new leadership under President Enrique Peña Nieto. While the new administration is touting proposed security reforms to combat violent drug cartels, Jones notes that there are more similarities than differences with the policies of former President Felipe Calderon.

Jones also suggests that events north of the border might have the potential to lead to more change in Mexico’s drug policies.

“The only real changes to the status quo for Mexico’s drug policy occurred not in Mexico, but in the U.S. Washington and Colorado’s passage of legal marijuana initiatives, have the long–term potential to significantly reduce cartel profits, as Mexican analysts have pointed out. Further, the impact of the Newtown, Connecticut, mass school shooting has the power to improve U.S.-Mexico cooperation on the flow of guns into Mexico in so far as it galvanizes public opinion in the U.S. on the once ‘third-rail’ issue of gun control.”